I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Kamen Rider W. It’s a fantastic show, and I love the characters, settings, suit designs, and music. It’s been one of the best Kamen Rider shows from recent years I think. Yet as much as I love this show, I can’t help but hate it for making me get this belt.

This is the main Rider belt for Kamen Rider W: the Double Driver. This is also my first delve into the realm of roleplaying toys. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I just had to have this belt though.

The main piece of the Double Driver is well painted I in a nice metallic red, with silver and gold highlights to help make it pop just a little more. It’s very show accurate and looks nice just as a replica piece as well. The Double Driver also comes with belt straps. However, as this toy was made for tiny Japanese children, it does not fit most older collectors. Luckily, I have found that the belt piece fit in very nice and snuggly on most belt loops for any pair of pants. No need for shoestrings or zip-ties here!

The other piece, which fits onto the belt strap is the Maximum Drive slot. Kamen Rider W inserts his Gaia Memories into the Maximum Driver slot to do one of his finishing moves. It’s just a piece of black plastic with a button with a clip, so you can totally just wear this around without the belt if you ever feel the urge to Rider Kick someone in public.

The main bulk of this review are the Gaia Memories. Gaia Memories are the source of Kamen Rider W’s powers. Each one USB Memory contains a memory of the Earth, with unique power and attributes for every one. Of the six basic Gaia Memories, the Double Driver comes with four: Cyclone, Joker, Luna, and Heat.

Each Gaia Memory is made of clear plastic and looks very nice. With the Double Driver you get three Soul Memories, the ones with silver tips, and one Body Memory, which has a gold tip. The other two, Metal and Trigger are not included in order to entice you into buying the other Kamen Rider W roleplay toys.

Every Gaia Memory has electronics in it. Pressing the main button will make the Memory cry out its name in glorious Engrish, and will also light up the tip in a nice bright LED light.

The silver tipped Gaia Memories go into the right side of the Driver, and the gold tipped Memories go into the left. Inserting the Memories gives a satisfying click, and causes the standby noises to start. After inserting two memories, a simple hardboiled flick of the belt will form the W in the Double Driver and set off the Henshin noises. The lights in the Gaia Memories also fill in the clear prism in the bottom of the belt to give you a nice tiny colored display.

Since you have four memories, there are three combinations of sound effects and forms of Kamen Rider W you can do: Cyclone Joker, Heat Joker, and Luna Joker. All of the sounds are clear, and also pretty loud for the size of the Gaia Memory.

All of the Gaia Memories can also be inserted into the Maximum Drive slot, and will give a different explosive finishing attack noise.

I’m very happy to own this toy, even though I don’t think roleplaying toys like this are really my thing. This is a very well done toy. Unfortunately it’s a bit hard to come by as Kamen Rider W was a show from a few years ago now. If you love Kamen Rider W, I can say that this belt does not disappoint at all.

Comments

When it was still available, I thought of buying it with my sister. We had a such great time watching Kamen Rider W and were thinking about making a fan video of the henshin, but we dropped the idea because we wouldn't buy more Gaia Memories... this is one of the things I regret in my life. This thing is beautiful and the act of putting the memories in the slots and opening them is so cool... hahah

Yeah, I bought my Double Driver right after finishing W and decided I NEEDED it after such a great show. I bought mine right before they started getting up into the three figures. Tracking down any version of the other two Gaia Memories was also no easy task either, let me tell you!